Sunday, October 07, 2012

On-line education is blossoming in a virtuous cycle of innovation, threatening disruption to expensive traditional universities and opening access to higher learning for anyone with an internet connection and a curious mind.

For developers, the on-line education boom means rich opportunities to learn, to create learning environments, and to analyze the data collected in the process of running massive open online courses - hacking education itself.

On-line education is a perfect complement for hotness that is data science. Not only is it a means for transferring trendy skills, but the data collected in the process should have amazing things to teach us about learning.

Not all the action is in cyber-space, either. If you have a hungry mind that needs feeding, you can:

The only limit is your own bandwidth. That, and the tolerance of your spouse.

The flashy technology is new but, the ideal of open access to knowledge has been around for a long time. The Seattle Times quotes Dave Cillay, executive director of WSU Online, "We've had MOOCs and open learning resources for centuries. They're called libraries."

I remember poking my head into a cinder-block schoolhouse in a tiny village in Laos, back in my traveling days. There were 2 books; a book that appeared to be equal parts farming manual and government propaganda and another of Buddhist scripture. The potential to mitigate that kind of information-poverty in the remote corners of the world is one of the most exciting aspects of on-line education.

Building on previous innovation is key to progress, especially in science and technology. Hacking education will help information flow faster, getting people to the frontier where they can start pushing the envelope and maybe make the world a slightly better place. That's why these are exciting times for those that love learning.